‘They’ve got away,’ he said to himself; ‘they have nothing to worry about now, like Vanni Pizzuto and Piedipapera who are asleep between the sheets at this hour. My house is the only place where they won’t have been sleeping, since they heard the pistol shots.’
And indeed those poor folk were not asleep, and were standing at the door, in the rain, as if they had had a premonition; while the neighbours turned over and went back to sleep, yawning and saying that they would hear what had happened to-morrow.
Later on, just as dawn began to break, people crowded in front of Pizzuto’s shop, where the light was still on; and there was a great chattering about what had happened, in the pandemonium of that night.
‘They caught both the smugglers and their goods,’ Pizzuto told people, ‘and don Michele got himself stabbed.’ People looked towards the Malavoglia’s doorway, and pointed. At last cousin Anna came out, all unkempt, white as a rag and at a loss for words. Suddenly, as if scenting disaster, padron ’Ntoni asked: ‘And ’Ntoni? where is ’Ntoni?’ ‘They arrested him last night for smuggling, along with la Locca’s son!’ answered cousin Anna, all judgement gone. ‘They killed don Michele!’
‘Ah, mamma mia,’ shrieked the old man thrusting his hands into his hair; and Lia did the same. Still with his hands to his head, padron ’Ntoni could only say, ‘Ah mamma mia. Mamma mia.’
Later on Piedipapera came, looking distressed and striking his forehead: ‘I was dumbfounded when I heard. What a disaster, padron ’Ntoni.’ Comare Grazia, his wife, was positively weeping, poor thing, seeing how disasters rained down on the Malavoglia household.
‘What are you here for?’ her husband asked her under his breath, pulling her over to the window. ‘You’ve nothing to do with all this. Now even showing your face in this household means attracting the attention of the police.’
And that was why people didn’t even come to the
Malavoglia’s doorstep. Only Nunziata, as soon as she heard the news, had put her little ones into the care of the least small, and asked her neighbour to keep an eye on the house, and had run to comare Mena’s, to weep with her, which was the action of someone who hadn’t yet reached the age of judgement. The others stood looking on, enjoying the sight from a distance, on the road, or crowded like flies around the front of the barracks, to see how padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni looked behind bars, after that knifing he had given don Michele; or they ran to Pizzuto’s shop, where he was selling absinthe, and shaving people, and telling everyone how everything had happened, word for word.
‘The idiots,’ pronounced the chemist. ‘So now who’s got caught then? The idiots.’
‘It’ll be a bad business,’ added don Silvestro; ‘there’ll be no getting him off a prison sentence.’ ‘The people who ought to go to prison never do,’ don Giammaria told him to his face.
‘No, that’s quite true,’ answered don Silvestro brazenly.
‘In this day and age,’ added padron Cipolla, yellow with gall, ‘the real thieves steal your property in broad daylight, and in the public square. And they can enter vour house without breaking either doors or windows.’
‘As ’Ntoni Malavoglia wanted to do with mine,’ added Zuppidda, joining the group as she spun her flax.
‘By heaven, I always told you so,’ began her husband.
‘You be quiet, you know nothing about it! What a day this would have been for my daughter Barbara, if I hadn’t kept my eye on things.’
Her daughter Barbara was at the window, all ready to see padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni go by between the policemen when they took him to the city.
‘There he’ll go and there he’ll stay,’ they all said. ‘You know what it says over the law courts in Palermo? ‘Run as far as you like, I’ll wait for you here,’ and ‘the whetstone eats up rusty iron.’ Poor devils.’
‘Decent folk don’t set their hands to that sort of thing,’ shrieked la Vespa. ‘People who look for trouble get it. Look at the kind of people who do such things — people who haven’t got other jobs, good for nothings, like Malavoglia, and la
Locca’s son.’ Everyone said yes, that when a son of that sort turned up, it would be as well that the house should collapse about his ears. Only la Locca went looking for her son, and stood outside the barracks, screaming for them to hand him over, refusing to listen to reason; and when she went to irritate her brother Dumb bell, and settled firmly on the steps of the balcony for hours on end, with her white hair swirling, zio Crocifisso would say: ‘I’ve got my own prison here at home! I’d like to be in your son’s position! What do you want from me? He didn’t earn a penny for you anyway!’
‘This is a positive advantage for la Locca,’ observed don Silvestro. ‘Now that she hasn’t got that excuse of having someone to look after her, they’ll put her in the poorhouse, and she can eat meat and pasta every day. Otherwise she’d be the responsibility of the Town Council.’
‘And it’s a good thing for padron ’Ntoni too. Do you suppose that loafer of a grandson of his didn’t cost him money? I know what a son like that costs a person. Now the king will be shouldering the burden.’
But instead of being relieved at saving that money, now that his grandson was no longer devouring it, padron ’Ntoni carried on throwing it after him with pettyfogging lawyers, that money which had cost them so dear, and which was intended for the house by the medlar tree.
‘Now we don’t need the house any more, or anything else!’ he would say, his face as white as ’Ntoni’s own, when they had taken him into town between the policemen, and the whole village had gone to see him with his hands tied and his bundle of shirts under his arm, which Mena had taken to him weeping, in the evening, when no one could see her. His grandfather had gone looking for a lawyer, the one with the patter, because now, after having seen don Michele go by in a carriage, while they were taking him to hospital, with his face yellow and his uniform all unbuttoned, the poor old man was afraid, and didn’t stop to quibble about the lawyer’s talkative nature, provided they got his boy’s hands untied and had him brought home; because it seemed to him that after that upheaval, ’Ntoni ought to come back home and be with them for ever, like when he was a boy.
Don Silvestro did him the kindness of going with him to the lawyer, because he said that when one of your fellow men is in trouble, as was the case with the Malavoglia, you have to help them as best you can, even if he is a gaol bird, and do your utmost to get him out of the hands of the law, that’s what we’re Christians for, to help our neighbours. After he’d heard the whole story, and had it summed up for him a second time by don Silvestro, the lawyer said it was a fine case, and would certainly merit a life sentence, were he not involved, and he rubbed his hands. Padron ’Ntoni became as soft as a sponge at talk of a life sentence; but doctor Scipioni slapped him on the shoulder, and told him he wasn’t a man of learning if he couldn’t get him off with four or five years inside.
‘What did the lawyer say?’ asked Mena as soon as she saw her grandfather reappear looking as he did; and she began to cry before she heard the answer. The old man was tearing his few remaining white hairs, and went around the house like a madman repeating that it would be better if they were all dead. Lia, white as a sheet, stared wide-eyed at whoever was talking, unable to open her mouth. Soon afterwards the subpoena appeared, for Barbara Zuppidda, Grazia Piedipapera, don Franco the chemist and everyone who had been in the square and in Pizzuto’s shop; so that the whole village was in turmoil and people panicked with the official documents in their hands, and swore they knew nothing so help them God! Because they didn’t want to get involved with the law. And they cursed ’Ntoni Malavoglia and all the rest of them who embroiled people in their affairs whether they liked it or not. Zuppidda was shrieking like one possessed: ‘I know nothing; I shut myself in my house at dusk and I’m not the sort who goes wandering around to get up to this sort of trick, or standing at doorways gossiping with spies.’
‘I like to keep the Government at a distance,’ add
ed don Franco. ‘They know I’m a republican, and they’d be delighted to have an excuse to get me to disappear from the face of the earth.’
People racked their brains to know what Zuppidda and comare Grazia and the others might say in evidence, because they had seen nothing, and had heard the shots from their beds, while they were asleep. But don Silvestro rubbed his hands like the lawyer, and said he knew why they had been summoned, and so much the better for the accused. Each time the lawyer went to talk with ’Ntoni Malavoglia, don Silvestro went with him to the prison, when he had nothing to do; and now no one was going to the Town Council and the olives were gathered. Padron ’Ntoni too made an attempt to go two or three times; but when he arrived in front of those barred windows, and the soldiers with the guns who looked at him and all the people who went in, he had felt sick and had stayed waiting outside, sitting on the pavement, among all the people selling chestnuts and prickly pears, and he couldn’t believe that his ’Ntoni was in there, behind those bars, with those soldiers mounting guard. Then the lawyer came back from his chats with ’Ntoni fresh as a daisy, rubbing his hands; and he told him that his grandson was well, indeed he had put on weight. Now the poor old man felt as if his grandson were just one of the soldiers.
‘Why don’t they let him come back to me?’ he asked each time like a parrot, or a child which won’t listen to reason, and he also wanted to know if they were keeping him with his hands tied.
‘You leave him be,’ doctor Scipioni would say to him, ‘In such cases it’s better to let a little time go by. Anyway he’s got everything he needs, as I told you, and he’s fattening up like a capon. Things are going well. Don Michele has almost recovered from his wound, and that’s a good thing for us too. Don’t you worry, I tell you, and go back to your boat, because this is my business.’
‘I can’t go back to my boat now that ’Ntoni is in prison; I can’t. Everyone would stare at us as we passed, and I can no longer think straight, now that ’Ntoni is in prison.’
And he would constantly repeat the same thing, while the money went though his fingers like water, and his family spent their days holed up in the house, with the door closed.
At last the day of the summons came, and those involved had to go to the law courts on foot, if they didn’t want to go with the policemen. Even don Franco went, and took off his awful old black hat to appear in front of the law, and he was paler than ’Ntoni Malavoglia, who was like a wild beast behind the bars, with the policemen beside him. Don Franco had never had any dealings with the law, and it annoyed him to have to appear for the first time in front of that handful of judges and policemen who can stick you behind bars in the twinkling of an eye, as they had done with ’Ntoni Malavoglia.
The whole village had gone to see how padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni looked behind bars, between the policemen, as yellow as tallow, not daring to blow his nose so as not to catch the eyes of all those friends and acquaintances devouring him, and he twisted his cap in his hands, while the judge, with his black robe and napkin under his chin, came out with a merciless list of the dirty deeds he’d performed, all written down there on papers down to the last word. Don Michele was there, as yellow as ’Ntoni, seated on a chair, opposite the jury who were yawning and fanning themselves with their handkerchieves. Meanwhile the lawyer was chatting in a low voice with his neighbour, as though the whole thing were nothing to do with him.
‘Listen to what they’re asking Santuzza,’ murmured Zuppidda. ‘I’m curious to hear how she’ll answer so as not to blurt out all her personal affairs to the law.’
‘But what do they want from us?’ asked comare Grazia.
‘They’ll want to know if it’s true that Lia was carrying on with don Michele, and if her brother ’Ntoni wanted to kill him to avenge his honour; the lawyer told me.’
‘I hope the cholera strikes you,’ the chemist hissed at them, glaring. ‘Do you want us all to go to prison? Don’t you know that you always have to deny everything with the law, and say that we know nothing?’
Comare Venera shrank into her shawl, but carried on muttering: ‘This is the truth. I saw them with my own eyes, and the whole village knows it.’
That morning there had been a tragedy in the Malavoglia household, because, when he had seen the whole village move off to go and see ’Ntoni convicted, their grandfather had wanted to go along with the others, and Lia, her hair tangled and her eyes wild and chin trembling, had wanted to go along too, and was looking all through the house for her shawl without saying a word, looking all distraught, and her hands trembling. But Mena seized her, pale as her sister, and had said to her: ’No, you can’t go, you can’t go,’ and that was all she would say. Her grandfather added that they should stay at home, to pray to the Virgin; and the wailing could be heard all up and down the strada del Nero. As soon as he was in the city, hiding behind a stretch of wall, the poor old man saw his grandson go by between two policemen, and though his legs almost gave way beneath him at each step, he went to sit on the steps of the law courts, among the people coming and going about their own business. Then at the thought that all those people were going to hear his grandson being convicted, amidst the soldiers, in front of the judges, it seemed to him as though he had abandoned him in the middle of the square, or at sea in a storm, and he too went with the crowd, and stood on tiptoe, to see the bars at the top, with the hats of the carabinieri, and the bayonets glinting. But there was no sign of ’Ntoni, in the midst of all those people, and the poor old man continued to think that now his grandson was one of the soldiers.
Meanwhile the lawyer nattered and chattered, droning on with his words like the endless pulley from a well. He said no, it wasn’t true that ’Ntoni Malavoglia had done all those dirty deeds. The judge had dug them up to land a poor son of toil in trouble, because that was his job. Anyway, how could the judge state such things? Had he perhaps seen ’Ntoni Malavoglia that night, dark as it was? ‘Losers are always in the wrong,’ and ‘the gallows are made for the luckless.’ Turning a deaf ear the judge looked at him through his glasses, with his elbows set among those horrible books. Doctor Scipioni repeated that what he would like to know was where the contraband was; and since when couldn’t a decent fellow go out for a walk at whatever hour he pleased, particularly if he’d had a drop to drink, to walk it off. Then padron ’Ntoni nodded, and said yes, yes, with tears in his eyes, because at that moment he could have hugged the lawyer who was saying that ’Ntoni was a drunkard. Suddenly he raised his head. That was good stuff! What the lawyer was saying right now alone was worth fifty lire; he was saying that they wanted to get him with his back to the wall, and to prove that ’Ntoni had been caught red-handed with the knife in his hand, and they had wheeled on don Michele, with the stuffing knocked out of him because of that knife wound to his stomach: ‘Who says that ’Ntoni Malavoglia gave it to him?’ spouted the lawyer, ‘Who can prove it? and who knows whether don Michele might not have inflicted that wound on himself, just to get ’Ntoni Malavoglia sent to prison?’ Well, if they were interested, they should know that smuggling had nothing to do with it. There was long-standing bad feeling between don Michele and ’Ntoni Malavoglia concerning women. And padron ’Ntoni nodded again, and if they had made him swear solemnly before the Cross he would have sworn, and the whole village knew about it, that business of Santuzza and don Michele, who was gnàwing his fists from jealousy, after Santuzza became sweet on ’Ntoni, and they had met up with don Michele at night, and after the boy had drunk; everyone knows what happens when you’re blind drunk. The lawyer continued: they could ask Zuppidda, and comare Venera, and a hundred thousand witnesses, again, whether don Michele was carrying on with Lia, ’Ntoni Malavoglia’s sister, and he hung around the strada del Nero every evening for the girl. They’d even seen him on the night of the knife wound!
Then padron ’Ntoni heard no more, because his ears began to buzz, and for the first time he saw ’Ntoni, who had stood up in his cage, and was tearing at his cap, pulling faces like one pos
sessed, eyes starting from their sockets, and saying no, no! His neighbours took the old man away, thinking he’d been taken ill; and the carabinieri laid him down in the witness room on the bunk bed there, and threw cold water in his face. Later, when they brought him lurching down the stairs, holding him under the armpits, the crowd too was streaming out like a river, and he heard them say that they had condemned him to five years hard labour. At that moment ’Ntoni too was coming out through the other little door, pale, between two policemen and hand-cuffed like Christ.
Gnà Grazia began to run in the direction of the village, and arrived before the others, with her tongue hanging out, because bad news travels fast. As soon as she saw Lia who was waiting at the door, like a soul in purgatory, she took her by the hand and said to her, as upset as the girl herself: ‘What have you been doing, you wretched child, for them to tell the judge that you’d been carrying on with don Michele, and your grandfather has been taken ill!’
Lia said nothing, as though she had not heard, or didn’t care. She just stood there staring at her, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. At last, slowly, she sat down on the chair, heavily, as though both her legs had been broken at a blow. Then, after she had sat like that for a long time, without moving and without saying a word, so that comare Grazia felt the need to dash water in her face, she began to stammer: ‘I want to go away. I don’t want to stay here any more!’ and she said it to the chest of drawers, and to the chairs, like a mad woman, so that her sister ran vainly behind her weeping: ‘I told you so, I told you so!’ and tried to seize her once more. That evening, when their grandfather was brought home on the cart, and Mena had run out to meet him, because by now she no longer felt any sense of shame in front of people, Lia went out into the courtyard and then into the street, and went off in earnest, and no one saw her again.
CHAPTER XV
I Malavoglia Page 26